Tag Archives: Dark Phantom

Underground tunes for the ears with Dark Phantom, Fyrnask, LisaCuthbert and Deadspace. Surely a platter for the ones with good taste is on offer here.

If you read this, please check out the music of Dark Phantom from Iraq.If you dig it, find an article or a song (or my bit) to share to give these guys the audience they deserve. Thanks

Dark Phantom – Nation of DogsIndependent

source: bandcamp

Kirkuk, thats where this band comes from. Kirkuk, that is a town in the north of Iraq. Now take a moment to let that settle in. Not only is it a city in the beleagered nation, it’s also an overly Kurdish city. In the past I spoke with their singer Mir about his project Cyaxares, but now the band Dark Phantom has an album too. While war is raging around them, these guys put all that grief, anger and frustration in a death metal record you will not soon forget. Unfortunately, they’re still running independently, so this is also a call to labels, promoters and others of that ilk to get these boys signed. Why would I want this band that has existed since 2007 signed? Well, the main reason for that is called ‘Nation of Dogs’, which is metal the way it sounds when you really mean it.

Dark Phantom sounds brutal. Deep guttural vocals are spat out over repetitive, but catchy riffs that have a pretty clear sound. The bass is a bit more twangy and creaky, but it sounds quite nice in combinationwith the clear sounding elements. What struck me most is the lyrics, which offer a fuck you to religion, terror and politics. A brutal statement, regarding the origins of the band. Cool fact is that the vocals don’t stick to the regular cookie monster growls, but also chant and sing cleanly in what feels like an ethnic way. It’s a clear reminder of the unlikely and irregular nature of this band, finding their own style and way of sound.
I’ve never made a secret of the fact that my knowledge of death metal is limited, but I really love this record. I feel that it is special and most urgently expresses a sentiment coming from the middle east. The production is not perfect, there are little dents and bruises to the songs, but it rocks and kicks ass. Check it out!

Fyrnask – FórnVán Records

source: bandcamp

Bonn appears to me as a strange city, this former capital of Western Germany. Where did it get its charm to be capital? I know little of the place, but now I know that one man black metal band Fyrnask hails from there. This record is the third for the project in the last five years. Inspired by nature, but also containing elements of bombastic epic sections, this sounds like much more than a one man endeavor. Fyrnask is an overwhelming experience that sounds much bigger than you’d think. Check it out.

The overwhelming sound of Fyrnask is a force to behold. A surging tidal wave of frantic compositions, hard to comprehend in their fullest, washes over you. Venomous barks are exchanged with baritone mumblings of a dark priest for the vocals. In the middle of the maelstorm the tremolo guitar play blasts away everything. The sound of this record is one of two extremes, minimal classical elements and blistering black metal are intertwining, working together harmoniously. This is ritualistic music, with strong violence and a link to the northland in both language and lyrics. It offers something for the more atmosphere loving listener as well as the black metal afficionado. Good stuff here.

Lisa Cuthbert – HextapesSelf released

source: Bandcamp

Born in Dublin, Ireland, making music seems to come natural to Lisa Cuthbert, who appears to have made a movement towards a more occult realm on this most recent endeavour. Most of the music Cuthbert makes herself, but additions were done by violinist Hanna van Gorcum (Pyrates!) and drums and percussion was done by Marvin Morelle. The recording comes in recycled materials, which is pretty cool to be honest. Cuthbert is an instrumentalist and vocalist, who plays guitar, piano, synths and stuff that makes noize according to the bio.

What the music of Lisa Cuthbert is exactly is hard to catch in genre terms. It’s music inspired by it’s Celtic roots, but neofolk misses out on some drone aspects and perhaps some ritualistic elements in the music. There’s definitely something dark to the music and the guitars on a song like ‘The Host Wants a Parasite’ remind you of the more drone doom orientated acts like Earth. It’s a peculiar record, that seems to draw from anywhere, as long as it gives of the right vibe. The intro for ‘Eyes’ reminds you of an old gospel record, while ‘Pillar’ comes closer to Clanned. It’s a mysterious album, that you can get lost in, as in foggy crypts and forests. There’s a darkness, but one that contains a unique beauty.

Deadspace – In Ecstatic SorrowIndependent

source: bandcamp

Hailing from down under, the band Deadspace plays their very own brand of depressive black metal. They call it blackened post goth-rock, which quite frankly might rank as the most ridiculous genre term ever, but is also sort of fitting. In their bio the band states to make art, but also that their art will not change anything. It’s just what they do. The depressive element is already apparent from this self effacing description. It’s an interesting approach for this uncommon band, check their artwork for example. This is the second unleashing of the band and I think its quite amazing.

The emphasis of the sound that these Ozzies deliver is much more on the theatrics, creating space for the vocalist and the keys to create the right setting. One can hear this very clearly in opener ‘Nostalgia, Like A Plague, She Rapes Me To Sleep’. The guitar is very present as well, sounding crisp clear and razorsharp in its tremolo playing style. The intro for ‘Venus’ for example blows the listener away. Originally the band intented for this to be a concept album, that had never seen the light of day. Now they’ve decided to put it out and it does shine in its cohesion. There’s a cleanliness to the sound, making it easy to get into, but also hard to really stick to it due to the rapid changes of pace and vibe of the songs. They might consider it not their best release, I think it’s a great record worthy of attention.

Metal arises in the most surprising places. One of the most unlikely locations for this kind of music to spring up is Iraq. Mir Shamal Hama-faraj is like a katalysator for metal in the country we know mostly for its dictator Saddam Hussain and the war-torn recent history of it.

Mir Shamal Hama-Faraj

The musician got into metal and started making music on his own, by himself. Metal in Iraq was the theme of a documentary, dealing with the band Acrassicauda from Baghdad. The band Cyaxares hails from Sulaymaniyah though, a predominantly Kurdic town in the northern part of the country. A region with a strong identity and historic awareness.

Mir Shamal Hama-faraj is thus pionering metal in a part of the world that this far has barely been touched by the genre. At this moment, his home is extremely close to the troops of IS and thus under threat. His other band, Dark Phantom, is from Kirkuk and has taken politics and religion as themes for their music. Unfortunately the contact with Mir Shamal Hama-faraj is lost at this moment. The last e-mail he wrote contained the following words:They Are Extremely Close, Neighbours With Kirkuk (Dark Phantom’s) And The Kurdish Peshmerga Is The Only Thing Holding Them Back.

All The Members Are Ok, For Now.

For the sake of getting his music out there, the interview should go out now. So enjoy reading about one of the most unlikely metal bands out there and be sure to check ou the music.

What does the name Cyaxares mean?Cyaxares was the third and greatest king of the Median, the most capable ruler and the Great Father of the Kurds. I chose this name, because it’s a proper name for this band and it matches what I do in my view.

The band started out as Voice Of Silence, with three members. We didn’t have any original tracks back then, because we just had gotten into metal. Some things then changed and we had a new name with three members, which was Beneath The Oceans Of Sands. Some of the swongs written for that band can be found on my album, namely ‘Whores Of Babylon’ and ‘Temples Of Fire’. Both songs where written by me.

After that I continued by myself as Cyaxares.

How did you get into metal music?It was in 2008, when I got into rock music and so I decided to get myself an album. I heard of a store that sells that kind of music, so I went searching for it to buy an album. My choise was: Iron Maiden. I bought the record A Matter Of Life And Death.

Listening to that record, I knew that this was what I wanted to do to. It actually took a while for me to learn that this music was called metal at this point, which was what I got more into. I moved on towards more extreme metal, after I started listening to Cradle Of Filth and Amon Amarth. They inspired me to do extreme vocals and music.

Mir Shamal Hama-Faraj

Do you do all the music yourself for Cyaxares? How do you go about recording stuff?
Indeed, I played and recorded everything on the album myself. As far as recording goes, I recorded it in my room without any professional or semi-professional equipment or what so ever.

Are there for you as an artist from Iraq any limits technically to what you can create?In fact I’m very limited to what I can do. It’s pretty much impossible to get good instruments and equipment let a lone a decent studio. I’m also not able to see a real live Metal concert or get a good teacher. I have to do everything by myself and the whole project rests on my shoulders. That means writing, recording, rhearsing, learning, funding and whatever comes with being a band.

Iraq is ofcourse for the ‘Western World’ (sorry for not being able to define this any better) one of the most unlikely countries to find metal. How do you regard this fact? Are there more metalheads and bands around?

True, metal is a very rare thing in Kurdistan and Iraq. The amount of bands from this region is in total six and thats it. The skills of most bands are limited, so they don’t really catch any attention, simply because they don’t live up to the global standard.

Is there any sort of repression you have to deal with, doing this in your country? How does being from Kurdistan matter? And how about your other band Dark Phantom?

Metal over here, like anywhere else, is fought by religious and old-fashionate people. As Dark Phantom, we’ve received multiple threats and Cyaxares is actually the only death metal band from Kurdistan, making it a band with ten times as much obstacles as bands in other parts of the world.

Dark Phantom

Is there anything typical for metal music from your country? Do you draw inspiration from where you come from that you put in the music?
Metal is a very obscure thing here, so there is too little to speak of typicalities. Yes, I have inspired others to start playing metal music, but it’s very limited at this moment. What I try to put in my music is the ideologies and mythic elements of my culture and I hope to make a difference and change things in this way.

Musically I draw inspiration from oriental music and the mythology. The metal influences, I would say, are mostly Behemoth and Lamb of God.

What are the main themes you try to weave into your music?The main themes are derived from ancient mythology and historical events in the Babylonian, Sumerian, Persian and ofcourse Median tradition. The call for leaving behind religion is a big theme in my music, but I’ve also put some classical poetry in there.

I’ve checked out your album ‘Whores of Babylon’. How did the writing and recording proces of that take place? What story are you trying to tell the listener on it?The writing process took me about four years, because I started from absolute zero. Actually I had to start by teaching myself all I needed to play this music, you know? It took me about three days to record everything by myself.

Every song has its own message, My message as Cyaxares is ‘Temples Of Fire’, a call for Zoroastrianism as an ideology. What I want to achieve is to make my culture known, to give the Kurdish people an independant voice and show its strenght as well. We are a people that have always managed to do so much with so little.

I did an interview with the band Melechesh a long time ago, who also indicated that they made ‘Mesopotamian/Assyrian metal’. Do you feel related to this band in any sense?“Melechesh” Is An Authentic Mesopotamian Metal Band, I Enjoy Most Of Their Work, But We Both Have Different Sound Of Our Own.

Would you be so kind to tell a bit about what ‘Mesopotamian metal’ is and what makes it so? Can you also elaborate a bit on the stories it involves and entities discussed in the lyrics?Mesopotamian metal is a combination of Arabic scales and rhythms in the music, combined with metal ofcourse. The oriental atmosphere in th esong and the lyrical themes then make up what I think is Mesopotamian metal. The themes should also incorporate mythology. A good example of a band playing this specific style of music is Aeternam.

What part does religion play in your music and are there dangers involved in it?I’m an atheist myself and my opposition to religion will always be a part of Cyaxares. It’s not a safe thing in this country to be an atheist but I will refuse any sort of religion, with or without music.

Can you also tell a bit about Dark Phantom, your other band?Dark Phantom is a thrash metal band from Kirkuk, that I joined last year on vocals and bass. We’re woking on an album right now. The main themes of the band ar war, and terror and it has five members. The situation in our country is part of the theme. I keep that out of Cyaxares though. [Video below – Dark Phantom]

What are your future plans for Cyaxares?The future plan for Cyaxares right now is a new album, titled ‘The House Of The Cosmic Waters’ and hopefully go abroad, get a label and create a full band.

The second album is progressing slow, three songs have been finished this far. I’m not sure how many songs will be on it, but it will probably take me about eight months to finish it. That’s mostly due to a lack of time and economic means to finish it faster.